Gamelan

I guess this will be the last time I write blog post for assignment purpose. Time flies. It's already week 13 now, and next week will be our final week. I not sure whether our lecturers will still check each of the post we wrote, but I hope this can be the good ending for this semester. :)

GAMELAN. We do this topic for our group assignment.
What's this? It's a traditional ensemble music of Java and Bali in Indonesia.

Before I starts this assignment, I never know anything about it. I thought it was a movie title or something. However, after done the research on Gamelan, interview with the SMK Bandar Baru Sentul teacher, I'm in love with Gamelan music. I didn't know that Gamelan music is such beautiful. It might sounds stereotype, but I always thought that Malay music wasn't as sedap as I think.

Malay Gamelan made up of 8 instruments which include Bonang, Gambang, Saron Peking, Saron Baron, Saron Demung, Kenong, Gendang and Gong.

This is how each of the instruments look like. The three saron can be considered as brothers. The differences between these three are on their size, and the number of hitting on each song. I'm appreciate I have groupmate who know a Gamelan teacher on his school which to allow me to know more about Gamelan.

The interview took about 1 hour.

Thank you so much Wan Mazni teacher for your time as well as the students behind us. This would definitely become one of my favourite memories. 

Own made documentary about Gamelan available at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6o6hOzXi9OY

Hope you like it. Enjoy :)

Sepet

Sepet - is a Malay word, which refers to the 'slit eyes' of the Chinese.

Left: Ng Choo SeongRight: Sharifah Amani

This was the second time I watched a Malay local production movie. The first time was during Y1S1 Film Studies class, the movie was named Dalam Botol. The story is about how's a man did transgender in order to satisfy he loved one. However, the man the protagonist loved couldn't accept what the protagonist did, so the protagonist's 'boyfriend' leave him. Later, the protagonist falls in love with a girl again, they decided to marry. But end up the protagonist realized he still loves man instead of women, so the protagonist leave the women. This is story about, I guess? LOL!

Anyway, the movie screening for this week is Sepet. It is a story about the protagonist named Loong/ Jason (Ng Choo Seong) falls in love with a Malay girl Orked (Sharifah Amani) when she goes to the CD stall that Ah Loong incharged of to buy pirated VCD. Love blossoms between them starts to grow when Ah Loong gives another Takeshi Kaneshiro's VCD to Orked. At the end of this story, it does not show whether Ah Loong lived or died while Orked is going to England for further study, but the answer reviews in another movie 'Gubra' that Ah Loong didn't die.  

I'm surprised by myself. Before I watch Sepet, I thought I'll be just like the movie screening before the week 'Bunuhan' that I'll fall asleep in the class. I personally think that Sepet is more interesting as compared to Bunuhan. The main actress in Sepet, Sharifah Amani, was one of the actress in Another Country theater too! The first time when I saw her, I was like, wow! This actress had a super powerful voice. Even though she is small in size, but her voice is just as loud as... as... I don't know what word to use to describe. According to the information in the Internet, she was born in 1986 which means she is only 18-year-old when she acted in Sepet! She did a great job in the movie.

As for the male protagonist Ng Choo Seong, I didn't know anything about him. I'll find it out when I watch the another movie starring by him. HAHA! At the beginning of the movie, I thought he's like those bad person that we normally see in the Hong Kong movie. However, it blew my mind that a person selling pirated VCDs can also speak good English. I learned don't judge a book by its cover.

The thing I would like to appreciate was the scriptwriter wrote the both side's mother accept their kids to be in a relationship with different races. I can say that most of the people today are more open-minded if compared to last time. There are still many people couldn't accept their child to be in a relationship with other races. Just as similar as LGBT. Many people still cannot accept the fact that lesbian or gay couples can be very happy too, just depends on how you look at it. I believe that as long as you LOVE your partner, you can go through every obstacle with him or her.

#theveryfirstmalaymovieIlike

Hi, Ms Raja Rodziah.

Hi there. The very first time I attended to your class.

This week talked about history of Malaysia Cinema. There were four art forms introduced in Nusantara before cinema included Mak Yong, Wayang Kulit (Shadow Play), Bangsawan (Malay Opera (Malay Opera) and Sandiwara (Modern Malay Theatre). 

Out of all these, I am interested with Wayang Kulit, which was known as Shadow Play in English language. Wayang kulit is the illusion of movement on screen. According to the lecture note, most of the Wayang Kulit stories based on Hindu epics of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. It is to impart moral values, pass down folklore and historical tales. The amazing part I thought about Wayang Kulit was the master puppeteer and storyteller are the same person! The person is known as the Tok Dalang. 

For me, it is so hard to do two things at once. People always say that girls are more easy to multi-tasking as compared to boys, but this does not apply to me. Back then, the Tok Dalang have to 'play' around with the puppet and memorize the dialogue he wants to say. Furthermore, the Tok Dalang have to control the voice projection and the voice expression. I think the Tok Dalang has to practice very frequently only manage to be a professional Tok Dalang. 

I still haven't get a chance to watch or see any Wayang Kulit show before. I wish I had the chance to watch it once in my life. The picture below was the yellowish effect produced by Wayang Kulit which I like very much. 

The yellowish effect. 

Source: http://www.meili-go.com/news

See you on next post! :)

- BYE - 

Trip to Bank Negara Malaysia Museum & Art Gallery

Last Tuesday, all of us, went to Bank Negara Malaysia Museum located at Kuala Lumpur. I have got nothing much to talk about for this trip, but I appreciated that I had the chance to visit to this awesome place. 

These are the some of the painting / installation art / drawing in the Art Gallery.

And, this is the drawing I like the most:

I can consider I like this drawing at first sight. When I looking at this drawing, it gives me some sort of  special feeling that can't be described by words. The cat staring at the milk rather than drinking it, I guess probably the author wanted to show the milk was expired! Nahh, I am just kidding. From my perspective, it has a high chance that the cat wants attention from its owner. Thus, it purposely makes milk spilt on the floor. Just as similar as human, when the kids want to grab attention from their parents, they will do try to do something bad so that their parents will pay more attention to them. Although some of them might get scold, however, they will still feel satisfied with their behavior. This is the satisfaction of mental and physical.

The second reason why I like this picture because my idol likes cat too! My favorite singer from Taiwan has 2 cats which named as Gaga and Woolala. The singer, my idol, will always upload the pictures of  the cats and added with some dialogue between them. Hence, I like this drawing because of the influenced by my idol. 

This are the 2 cats I mentioned above. On the left is Woolala, and on the right is Gaga.

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Obviously, this is not an art. But rather leaving it there, I decided to take a picture with it. So this is how I show my 'respect' to the sign. *too stubborn*. People will tend do to something that people ask them not to do ask us. For example, the sign - no smoking. Unfortunately, that is the area where most people smoking at. 

Later on, there is a brand new installation art in the Bank Negara Malaysia Museum & Art Gallery. The art named as Garygagagagagaagga! 

Before I end my post, I would like to thanks to Kai Li for recording the process while we are in the Art Gallery. And she made a video for that too! Follow her on youtube! 

Here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjay1FEovn4&feature=player_embedded

Enjoyyyyyyy!

Group photos. Thank you Ms. Edaline. All the best in Taiwan! 

2 in 1

Tan Zi Hao

Last week lecture, Mr. Tan a.k.a Mr Tan Zi Hao was invited to our lecture class to talk about his artwork. The first thing I saw from Zi Hao was his spectacle! I am interested with people wearing round shape spectacle. I mean I was wondering why he chose the the round shape spectacle instead of rectangle shape one? I wanted to ask him, but somehow feel like I am out of topic. There must be a reason, I guess? Because myself is now wearing round shape spectacle, and the reason was because I am bored with wearing the rectangle one. Okay, I know, it is a lame reason.

Alright, now let's talk about Mr Tan's artwork. An artwork he shown to us that I found it quite interesting was the one rejected to publish in Publika's toilets. God is everywhere, God of course in the toilet, he said. Yeap! I agree what he said even though sounds a little funny. God is just as same as human, just the place of God living is different. Later on, he said his artwork were separated into four elements, not separated, but based on four elements? AHH, whatever. The four elements were:

1. Not sure what it was because I was dreaming that time
2. Thematic: language
3. Body
4. Contradiction - Myth of a myth

A hand shake could be a contradiction. It may be a symbol of relationship, or one of the way to express the feeling that I am watching you, sounds creepy? Zi Hao told us during his talk, he told people that the gesture of hand shaking was as similar as Xenophora**. After people heard about that, they stop shaking hand with Zi Hao. "Refrain from shaking hand to protect you and the people around you for the health". That is the way!

** Xenophora commonly called as carrier shells, it is a genus of medium sized to large sea snails.

Zi Hao's Xenophora

What is a Xenophora to you?

I think toilet is a xenophora to me. When I want to do "business", I will think of toilet, because I need it. But when I do not, toilet is just a "bacteria" area to me. I shouldn't write toilet as bacteria area, because normally I will get some brilliant ideas while I am bathing. So this shown, there was a contradiction. 

After read through tanzihao.net, the post I liked the most was attempting conflict (2012). 

link: http://tanzihao.net/Attempting-Conflict-2012

TAN ZI HAO, a person made up with curiosity and randomness......?
tanzihao.net

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21.07.2015

I do not want to put "untitled" as my title, so a date will do.

2 types of art

1. Art for art's sake
2. Art for engagement
    - with other artists
      - with society
        - with issues

Art for art's sake is people who do art just for his or her own interest. The art for engagement is people who do art to convey certain message to a specific group. As time goes on, people who know about art were getting lesser and lesser, in short decrease. What makes this happen? Probably would be the education system in Malaysia. Students who are in primary and secondary school are compulsory to take at least once drawing class for eg. Pendidikan Seni Visual. YES, I mean simply just a drawing class.

Why?

During the period of time, we did not taught to describe, analyze, interpret and judge the artwork. Not to say it is a must to judge the artwork, unless you are an artist. But at least to teach us to analyze like aesthetic, formalistic, material considerations. Or maybe the schools can organize a trip to visit to some art gallery.

I am blessed that during my university life, I get the chance to meet up with people who know art. I, myself love to look and act as an art people. I think art people are kind of cool and they have very strong personality, that is the reason I love them. They do not care what people think of them, they just do whatever they think is correct. It might sounds stubborn, but YOLO! You only live once. Do not live your life under people's expectation. Be yourself :)

Yay!

Malaysian Artwork

It is getting hard for me to concentrate in class when I have got no enough sleeping time. Anyways, let's start to talk about Malaysian Artwork. There were three questions asked in class:

1. What is Malaysian artwork?
2. What significant event that Malaysian artist should feature?

3. Is it the responsible of Malaysia artist to create Malaysia artwork?

Refer to the first question, I think Malaysian Artwork is the art or contents that created by Malaysian. For instance, a song written by Malaysia composer but sang by a Taiwan singer, that is still considered as Malaysian Artwork though? What I thought was as long as a Malaysian is involved in the artwork, it could be counted as Malaysian Artwork. 

Well, significant event for every Malaysian artist I think would be different? As the Malaysian artists were born in different years, what they had been through and experienced probably would not be the same. For me, myself, I think a significant event that Malaysian artist should feature will be the education system in Malaysia. Not sure because we are Asian, we were all trained to be person who always nod our head instead of saying a NO to other people. We have a mindset that if we did not say no, it could help us to escape from a lot of problems. On the other hand, we were also trained not to question. When we feel something is not right, we will just ignore it and continue with our stuff. I think this is a serious problem that needed to discuss on. 

Is it the responsible of Malaysia artist to create Malaysia artwork? It is definitely a big YES! But somehow, I do not think only the responsible of Malaysia artist, but MALAYSIAN. We are all living in Malaysia where our living habits are influence by the culture around us. Thus, this may help the non-artist to create Malaysia artwork too. The non-artist can simply upload their artwork on the Internet by a few mouse click.  

-BYE- 

Inspiration x Creativity

I do not write because of the sick of writing. Especially on the things I am not familiar with, for example last week's topic: POLITICS. We discussed about May 13, 1969 in class, how were the incident happened and why people during that age had been fight for their rights.When Dr Carmen talked about that in class, like seriously, I had zero knowledge about that. Can says that I live in my own world, and my parents do not tell me anything about May 13. I would not blame them because they went through the stage, they had the mind set that to protect their own daughter which is me from the danger. I guess it is my responsibility to find out what had happened in the past. 

But sorry to say, I memang not interested in HISTORY & POLITICS lahh .. 

Where does inspiration for creativity come from?

Inspiration? Most of the time, inspiration comes to me when I am bathing in the bathroom! I knew it sounds kinda silly to get inspiration when bathing, but I do believe bathroom is the space where we can relax ourselves the most because no one can disturb us when we are taking bath. Our mind get to relax, inspiration will come automatically. Relaxation is also one of the reason why a lot of  'bathroom singer' was born.

Some might argue that bedroom would be the space, where they can relax and be themselves. However, when you are in the bedroom, people might also enter to your personal space when you are doing some private stuff like when you are doing present for your loves one, maybe? I'm afraid people will get me wrong that is why I gave example. #youknowwhatimean

Words like formal, contextual, the 4Cs - curiousity, confidence, courage and change that are related to inspiration were taught by Dr Carmen in the lecture. 'Inspiration usually comes from contextual'. Contextual is the culture and the things we exposed to in our life. As well as the word - 'formal' was also discussed in class, most of us relate the word formal to the outer appearance and serious kind of thing. Probably this is because before we doing any presentation, our lecturer says, wear FORMAL ahh. 

Moreover, I believe all the human were born with creativity without realizing it. But since we were small, our creativity has been limited by the people around us, the parents, teachers and others.

Basically, the Chinese words in the picture means the standard answer of certain things. The education in school taught us we must all think alike, and limit the creativity in us. Why the sky called as sky instead of rainbow? Why blue color was known as blue color? Lots of why questions appeared but many are still undefined. 

Self-other

Another interesting word discussed in class. 

This is the diagram Dr Carmen drew for us in class. I was confused by this diagram when I first saw it. An example told by Dr Carmen, imagine if now Aliens attacking us, we, human will automatically classify ourselves as self, and the Aliens as others without consider the race, skin color or how you look like as long as you are not Alien. Self will change accordingly based on who is the others. 

When there is nothing happen, like in normal day, people will live in their comfort zone and separate themselves into groups. We are living in a multi-racial and multi-cultural country, we should not separate each other because we are Malaysian. 

Oopss, seems like I am back to the first week's topic. 

-BYE-

Another Country @ DPAC

Hi, time flies. Time to write second post. :)

Last Saturday and Sunday, all students from Malaysia Media and Culture went to Damansara Performing Arts Center (DPAC) to watch a theater 'Another Country' directed by Jo Kukathas from Malaysia and Ivan Heng from Singapore. The overall of the theater was about the interaction between Singapore and Malaysia.

Another Country Poster

The theater were separated into two parts. The first part of the show - Sayang Singapura was played by the cast from Malaysia included Ghafir Akbar, Sharifah Amani, Anne James, Alfred Loh and Iedil Putra. The second part of the show - Tikam-tikam: Malaysia @ Random 2 was played by the cast from Singapore which were Sharda Harrison, Gani Karim, Janice Koh, Lim Yu-Beng and Siti Khalijah Zainal. The played was about 2.5 hours long and a short break in between for 15 minutes. The fun part about this theater was the actors did not act the story from their own country, instead they exchange their roles to act in the show.

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Sayang Singapura

Sayang Singapura curated by Alfian Sa'at. It was a combination of 35 sketches from 15th century to year 2013. To be honest, I could not understand at first when they starts playing the sketch especially the first sketch 'The Malay Annals'. The script were written in Malay language. As mentioned in the previous post, I could not speak and write good Malay. That is the reason why I cannot understand the sketch. *I am regret not to learn my Malay language properly when I am in my secondary school*. Anyways, among all the sketches from Sayang Singapura, two of the sketches had attracted me included Oh! Singapore and Mama Looking For Her Cat. 

Oh! Singapore was saying people in Singapore repeating the daily routine everyday like work work work, after work then sleep. The next morning, work, eat and sleep again. Non-stop repeating the similar thing in order to fight for their life. For instance, pay taxes to the government. In Oh! Singapore, the actors expression were great and the way they expressed themselves were like they are living in Singapore and bored of their life. Why did I said so? Because the actors for Sayang Singapura are Malaysian. From this, we can clearly see that the Malaysia actors had really put in effort to understand the culture in Singapore. 

The next sketch that drew my attention was Mama Looking For Her Cat acted by Anne James and Alfred Loh. I am sure you will ask me why if I did not write the reason here. The reason was both of them were really cute. *bad reason* Alfred Loh spoke Hokkien and Anne James spoke Tamil, they were actually looking for their cats. Even though both of them could not communicate in the same language, but they could communicate using their face expression, hand gesture as well as body language. I guess this situation is not only happening in Singapore, but also in Malaysia. We cannot understand all of the languages, but we can still live in a harmony life. 

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Tikam-tikam: Malaysia @ Random 2 

Before the second part of the play starts, the audience had a chance to interact with the actors from Singapore. One of the actor Sharda Harrison held a board for the audience to pick the sequences of the play just as the title they named - Tikam-tikam. The major difference between Sayang Singapura and Tikam-Tikam was Sayang Singapura played in sequence, but Tikam-Tikam's sequences were randomly picked by the audience. This gave a big challenge to the Singapore actors. However, the Singapore actors did great in the play! *Bravo* From all of the sketch in Tikam-tikam: Malaysia @ Random 2, two sketches that drew my attention were The Chef's Secret and Emily of Emerland Hill by Stella Kon.

The Chef's Secret was about FOOD! I bet most of the Malaysian love food. The chef in the sketch basically about how he prepared Hainam Chicken Rice. From the process of 'catching the chicken' until the chicken rice was fully cooked. The epic part about this play were the actors act as 'chicken' for the chef to 'catch' as well as the way they talk for instant add some salt, add some sugar and so on. No idea why, probably this is the only one sketch about food. Thus, I can remember well.

Alright, for the next sketch Emily of Emerland Hill. I am being serious to tell you that I cannot recall what were the story about, but I have written down in my notes that the actor Sharda Harrison almost cried before the story ends. I saw the tears in her eyes, I felt the sadness of hers. It touches me though.

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Now let's talk about the overall.

I love the lighting they used in the hall. Not sure any of you realized, in a scene *not sure which scene*, when the actor point on each of the grid on the floor, the grid light up accordingly. The perfect lighting was the result that the actor got after they practice for so many times and of course, the cooperation between the lighting crew and the actor, I guess.

I love the voice projection of each actor. The actors voice were loud enough for all the audience in the hall even though they did not use any mic. Ghafir Akbar raised his voice during the Talaq sketch scene, it surprised me! His voice was just in the right volume, not too loud, not too soft. However, I heard some of the actor's voice were getting hoarse as the show goes on. I do understand the feeling when you need to shout to the audience to make sure everyone heard your voice because I, myself once act in the drama in UTAR.

This was not the first time I watch theater in DPAC, but so far Another Country was the best theater I have ever seen. Hope to get more chance to watch theater with my peer :D

Say Hi to Xin Rui & Ghafir Akbar :D

That's all from me.
Good night, time to sleep.

18.06.2015, 11.23pm

Hi.

Hi there. :)

The very first post I written in English language. As English is not my mother tongue, might be a little awkward using it in my post. Anyways, just trying my best to write something about the class and answer the questions discussed in the class.

Before I enter the class, I was expecting the class will be as bored as the previous subject I took in year 1 semester 3 where the lecturer talked about the theories and show us some video clips during the class. For your information, both classes are about Malaysian culture, but the ways of teaching in both lecturers are totally different which surprised me and makes me to have the intention to focus in class. Thank you Dr Carmen! :D By the way, one very important fact to all the lecturers and tutors is that it is a MUST to communicate and interact with your students. Students will not fully concentrate in class if you just keep lecturing without interacting with them.

Alright, first activity in class wasn't introduce ourselves. Instead, our lecturer Dr Carmen gave us a word and asked us to write any three things that related to the word given. It was interesting that words like 'disaster', 'black out', and 'traffic jam' were appeared under the category of 'Malaysia'. Does Malaysia bring so much of negative thought to Malaysian? Later on, questions were  given by Dr Carmen on Do you identify as a Malaysian? Why? Does it matter? for us to answer in our blog. So, here you go!

Oh well..  My reaction was of course I am a Malaysian! I am holding Malaysia based identity card. I was born here and raised here, my family and friends are here. My primary school, secondary school and now, UTAR are also here. However, after I think twice, I realized I wasn't identify as a Malaysian. 

WHY?! 

1. I can't eat spicy food!! As you all know, most of the Malaysian food such as Nasi Lemak, Rojak, Laksa and Curry Mee are all spicy. I love to eat, and I think I'm considered as food addict, but too bad I can't eat spicy. 

2. Be as punctual as I can. Some Malaysian couldn't be punctual or to be on time. I have no idea why this happens most of the time. Based on my own experience, when Malaysian attending wedding dinner, the invitation card stated the event will be starts on 7pm, but some of them will have the thought that it is okay to be late, because of typical Malaysian thinking style. That is the reason why I always remind myself to be punctual. HEYY guys, Time is gold!

3. I can't speak and write good Malay. I used to fail my Malay essay writing during my primary school and secondary school. The only Malay I can speak for now probably will be *ah neh, teh tarik satu, roti kosong satu*, when I am ordering foods in mamak stall. This might sound sarcastic, but I think many of us can't speak good Malay. Opsss..

4. I don't go for promotion stuffs. This doesn't mean I'm a rich kid, I'm just afraid of people pushing each other as well the long queue in the store. Normal shopping time without promotion will takes around ten to twenty minutes, but when it comes to promotion time, it might takes more than one hour just to pay for the stuffs. Does the value of the stuffs worthy than the time you have in your life? 

Does it matter?

Even though I had given some proved that I'm not identify as a Malaysian, but the answer is still YES! I believe if we as a Malaysian work together, we will surely achieve Vision 2020 in 5 years time. And for myself, I will try to adapt the ways of live in Malaysia, try eat spicy food and learn to speak good Malay with other races in order to live harmoniously in this multi-ethnic country. 

-BYE-